Presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Atiku Abubakar; and that of Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Peter Obi, were absent on Monday as opposition parties and presidential candidates opened fresh negotiations in Abuja on the possibility of presenting a single candidate against the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2027 presidential election.
Convened by the G-100 political pressure group at the Yar’Adua Centre, the summit brought together representatives of six opposition parties — the ADC, Allied Peoples Movement, NDC, Peoples Democratic Party, Peoples Redemption Party and Social Democratic Party.
In attendance were the PRP presidential candidate, Donald Duke; SDP presidential candidate, Adewale Adebayo; Democratic Leadership Alliance candidate, Moses Olusoji; and APM vice-presidential candidate, Lawan Daura, alongside other party leaders and stakeholders.
The absence of Atiku and Obi was not explained at the meeting, but, a source familiar with the discussions said the two leading opposition figures were watching the process closely and were likely to take a position after assessing the framework being developed by the G-100 organisers.
Even though efforts to obtain official reasons for their absence from the camps of both presidential candidates were unsuccessful, the spokesman of the House of Representatives minority caucus, Afam Ogene, said their absence should not be interpreted as a lack of support for the initiative.
Ogene said Monday’s summit was primarily to lay the foundation for the process.
The summit came against the backdrop of the opposition’s failure to coordinate its votes in the 2023 presidential election.
Opening the summit, the G-100 convener, Salihu Lukman, argued that opposition parties collectively secured about 13 million votes in 2023—substantially more than the less than nine million votes recorded by the eventual winner, President Bola Tinubu—but lost the opportunity to defeat the All Progressives Congress because the votes were divided among several candidates.
Lukman urged the parties to draw lessons from the negotiations that preceded the 2015 presidential election, when opposition parties eventually formed the APC and defeated the then-ruling Peoples Democratic Party.